Abigail Aiken

With the prospect of a more conservative Supreme Court on the horizon, some progressive women have begun to fear what will happen if Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion, is overturned. Some of these prophecies have centered on a popular meme in the pro-choice community: The coat hanger.

During a recent rally, New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon held up a wire coat hanger as a warning that we should not return to the previous generation’s means of obtaining illicit abortions. And Representative Lois Frankel, a Democrat from Florida, banged a coat hanger on the table at a briefing while discussing the latest Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Ireland’s abortion referendum raises the bar for U.S. abortion politics

By Abigail R.A. Aiken
June 9, 2018

Ireland’s landslide vote to repeal the Eighth Amendment of its Constitution signaled the end of one of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws. Just as remarkable as the “yes” vote itself, however, was the debate that led to the result — and how refreshingly different it was from the debate here at home. In Ireland, politicians actually listened to evidence, and they listened to women. In America, too many politicians have done neither.

The United States and Ireland have long seemed far apart on abortion. The U.S. Constitution protects the right to choose, whereas until last week, the Irish Constitution explicitly equated the life of a fetus with the life of a pregnant woman. Yet the two countries are much more similar than they seem at first glance.

The doctor who brought abortion out of the shadows in Ireland
Rebecca Gomperts helps women who can’t terminate pregnancies under the law.

by Jillian Deutsch
3/20/18

AMSTERDAM — Abortion may be illegal in Ireland, but it is already a reality for thousands of women in the country because of packets of pills openly smuggled in by a Dutch doctor and activist called Rebecca Gomperts.

So as Ireland gets ready to hold a referendum on May 25 on whether to legalize the termination of pregnancies in one of the last European countries to ban it, there is already broad consensus among the country’s politicians that it’s time to bring abortion out of the shadows.

Prof Lesley Regan wants nurses and midwives to be allowed to administer abortion pills, and only one doctor’s approval to be required
Prof Lesley Regan, head of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Denis Campbell Health policy editor
Thursday 5 October 2017

Nurses and midwives should be allowed to give women the pills that end an unwanted pregnancy as part of a relaxation of Britain’s abortion laws, the leader of the country’s specialist women’s health doctors has demanded.

In an interview with the Guardian, Prof Lesley Regan also urged MPs to amend the longstanding legal requirement for two doctors to approve any termination, reducing the number to one except in a few unusual circumstances.

Despite legal abortion in Great Britain, women cite access barriers, new research finds

University of Texas at Austin

Sept. 20, 2017, AUSTIN, Texas

Some women are seeking abortion services outside the formal health care system in Great Britain, where abortion is legally available, citing reasons such as access barriers, privacy concerns and controlling circumstances, according to new research from Abigail Aiken, an assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. The peer-reviewed study was published Wednesday in Contraception, an international reproductive health journal.

May 17th, 2017
A new scientific study published today in the BMJ shows that telemedical abortions are highly effective.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Texas in Austin, Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh. They looked at the data of 1,000 women in Ireland and Northern Ireland who used the service of Women on Web. Women on Web is an online service of telemedicine initiated ten years ago by Women on Waves. Women living in countries where access to safe abortions is restricted can use it to access information and be referred to a medical doctor to receive a medical abortion.
For more information about Women on Web: +31624195506 or info@womenonwaves.org

Press release by BMJ:

Early medical abortion using online telemedicine offers a highly effective alternative to unsafe methods to end a pregnancy for women in countries where access to safe abortion is restricted, finds a study published by The BMJ today.

The findings, based on reports from women living in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland where abortion laws are among the most restrictive in the world, show that rates of adverse events are low and that women are able to identify potentially serious complications and seek medical attention when advised.

The results provide the best safety evidence to date for self sourced medical abortion through telemedicine - and have important implications for millions of women worldwide, say the researchers.

About a quarter of the world's population lives in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws. Globally, each year an estimated 43,000 women die as a result of lack of access to safe legal abortion services through their countries' formal healthcare systems. Millions more have complications.

Yet little is known about the safety and effectiveness of medical abortion provided through online clinics.

So a team of international researchers led by Abigail Aiken at the University of Texas, analysed self reported outcome data submitted to a telemedicine clinic by 1,000 women four weeks after receiving and using the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol to end an early pregnancy.

Ninety three women (9.3%) reported experiencing any symptom for which they were advised to seek medical attention and, of these 87 (95%) sought attention.

None of the five women who did not seek medical attention reported experiencing an adverse outcome.

The researchers highlight some study limitations that could have introduced bias and say their results might not be generalisable to all settings. However, key strengths include the large sample size and high follow-up rate.

"For the millions of women worldwide living in areas where access to abortion is restricted, the findings show the vital role played by self sourced medical abortion in providing an option with high effectiveness rates and few reported adverse outcomes," they conclude.

In a linked editorial, researchers in Canada say, while findings from self reported data must always be treated with some degree of caution, these "reassuring study data support growing calls for reform."

They point out that repeal of legal restrictions "would support the safest and most equitable abortion care for women in Irish jurisdictions.

Until then, for the first time in history, women of all social classes in a legally restricted yet high resource setting have equitable access to a reasonable alternative: medical abortion guided by physicians through telemedicine," they conclude.